I've been getting panicked email and phone calls, and everything else, since a caller to the Thom Hartmann Program yesterday mentioned receiving an Absentee Ballot Request form in the mail from the McCain campaign. Apparently, the caller from Wisconsin was a Democrat, suspected foul play (and not without reason!) and was followed by several other callers and emailers reporting the same in that state and others around the country.

Lee Rayburn, who was guest hosting for Thom, called me just after he got off the air yesterday to let me know what was going on, and to forward some of the emails he had been receiving so I could check them out to figure out what was going on. In fact, I had already received some of those McCain Absentee Ballot Request forms from others in the days preceding yesterday's show.

Well, with panic among Dems (understandably) reaching a fevered pitch by last night, claims of "massive Republican vote caging" going on, as based on these mailings, he asked me to come on today and explain what I was able to learn about the situation. (Audio of interview posted below.)

As discussed during my appearance with Lee on Thom's show this morning, in this case at least, those mailers seem to be generally on the up and up. While it appears to be a massive and very aggressive GOTV effort from the McCain campaign --- even targeting Democrats in places they consider "swing states," like Wisconsin --- there doesn't seem to be anything nefarious going on with these particular mailings. At least so far as I've been able to tell...

The addresses on the postcards to Election Clerks --- included in the mailings so the receiver can send in their absentee ballot request --- all seem to be correct addresses for those officials, and the postcards seem to be legit (even if the mailings in Ohio seem to have had an extra, unneeded check box on them, and the ones in NC, targeting Republicans, fail to let folks know they also need to include both birth date and phone number in order to properly receive their absentee ballots. Both of those cases seem to be administrative failures, and seem likely to affect Republicans more than Dems from what I can tell.)

More details on what we've been able to learn --- and my thanks to John Gideon of VotersUnite.org for his quick assist --- are given during my interview (appx 12 mins) with Lee on today's show, as posted below.

BTW, as I note during the interview, I think it's great that folks are paying attention this time, raising hell when they see something suspicious, and taking action on it --- by contacting the media, their local and state election officials, etc. So good job, folks! Stay vigilant! But remember to stay level-headed at the same time, when possible, to make sure we know what we're working with when this stuff comes up. And it's gonna come up a lot between here and there. I promise.

UPDATE: There are still some concerns, with some of these mailers, that while the address for the Election office may be correct, it may for an office in a county other than where the voter actually lives. I'm trying to look into these instances, seen in both Wisconsin and Missouri, to determine what would happen if a voter sent their absentee request form to a county other than the one where they are registered. Will update with any info I can glean from officials over the weekend...

UPDATE 9/15/08: Kathie Wild, City Clerk of Mayville Wisconsin, has replied to our query concerning the above, after I'd forwarded a copy of a McCain mailer which had been sent to a Madison voter with an "Absentee Ballot Request" postcard included as addressed, incorrectly, to the County Clerk in the city of Mayville. Wild's response follows in full...

If an absentee request that isn’t for a Mayville voter was sent to my office I would forward the application on to the correct clerk. So far I have not received any requests that weren’t for Mayville voters. Actually so far I have only received one request from this mass McCain mailer. I personally received this mailer at my home address and it did have the correct address on it.

The address on the attached mailer that you attached in your email seems to have the correct Mayville City Clerk except that it is missing PO in front of the box. I still think that would make it here however. Our address is PO Box 273 15 S School St.

My feeling is that the address thing is just a mistake on the McCain campaign.

Thanks,
Kathie Wild
City Clerk
City of Mayville

And in a response to concern about mailers sent to voters in St. Louis County, MO, reportedly with postcards addressed to a different county, a source close the Sec. of State's office tells us:

We've seen these. My initial concern is that although it includes two copies of the correct absentee request form, the mailer says "vote by mail" and in Missouri we do not have "vote by mail" and you still have to have an excuse to vote absentee. Might be confusing to voters.

Yeah yeah yeah, folks.
The important thing is to keep the imformation flowing, especially here thru Bradblog. I think this may be the best one-stop-shop for election info.
No matter what it is, never assume anything weird having to do with voting is OK. Check it out yourself, but always let Brad and the other patriots here know so they can check it out. You sure can't depend on the media to vet this stuff...

Brad, what you said today with Lee Chapman gave me some disgruntlement.

That you are not (yet?) 'sold on' Vote-by-Mail, such as Oregon has. That the same old corruptable computer-based machines still count the ballots. That after your put 'the ballot in the mail,' you don't know where it is, if it arrives, nor if it's counted.

I volunteer-worked on (and won an award for) collecting petition signatures which put Vote-by-Mail on the Oregon ballot, where it passed handily, 60/40 as I remember.

The way it ever came up was this: In '92 or '94 (or both, I forget the detail), the Oregon GOP sent absentee ballots to all and only GOP-registered voters. Resulting in more participation, and 'overthrow,' than that Party had ever had before. It was not a two-step process, as in other States, of 1st requesting Absentee, receiving that ballot, and 2nd submitting it. Oregon absentee ballots were stacked on the Election Office countertop and a voter just took one, as needed; ordinary 'verification' methods and civic decency kept fraud minimized in the standard range, way less than 1%.

GOP bulk mailing of absentee ballots in the early '90s, and the lopsided response arising from it, disturbed the representative landscape so that the empowered officials during those years behaved out-of-character from the sense, and consensus, of the electorate. The slow-footed Democrats, and the 'traditional' Oregon Independents, too, for that matter, were about 5 election cycles catching on and catching up, ('92,'94,'96,'98,2000, say); and 'representational' balance didn't really feel restored (to pre-1980 ethos, as perhaps a subjective personal measure), until only this latest polling, 2006.

Of course, it's all not quite so simplistic or one-dimensional, but my point is to emphasize how quickly other States need to react to counter and correct whatever wholesale absentee-ballot barrage tactic the Rovian goons are replicating from their Oregon test market.

And I recommend Oregon's response: All absentee balloting, all 'absentee,' all the time. It has played out better than expected.

First of all, voter participation jumps 10 to 20 percent, across the board. Two factors seem to identify the most of the 'new' voters --- one is asocial persons who do not like to be seen in public (polling), with low self-esteem ... 'nuff said; and two is time-pinched too-busy voters, who have ballots in hand for 2 weeks up to Election Day, to discuss, decide, mark votes, and turn in. The good affects of this can hardly be overstated; the worrisome downside 'loopholes' which come to mind in considering the logistics, have mostly all been thought of, or encountered, by others (pioneers) already, and remedies developed and applied. Just keep reminding yourself, '2 weeks to vote,' and you can easily think of many benefits in it.

There are many other aspects and interesting points which can be said favoring Vote-by-Mail. Google up some info and look into what interests you. The key to success with it, is for a State to enact its Vote-by-Mail procedure totally and completely in one fell swoop, utter reformation, (although Oregon 'experimented it' for 2 election cycles, running both styles in parallel), and then leave no remnant of the former mechanisms. No polling places, no voting machines, no League of Women Voters volunteers checking signatures and dispensing ballots, no standing in line, none of the old ways and familiar fashion. (I skip, here, some few exceptions, such as voting machines and polling provisions for handicapped voters.)

One early result is noticeable Election budget savings from all the equipments and rented locations done away with.

And let me get to each of your stated concerns, Brad.
1.) Yeah, the election office machines still scan and count ballots, and conceivably could be fraud-programmed. But hardly. Every ballot is hard-copy paper-trail. Any irregularity, anomaly, or recount requirement, can be done on an interchanged machine. As it is, Oregon's ballot bulk handling and feeding into the scanner, is done in full public view of whoever likes to go watch. And in some places, the media does.

Just, the manner of rigging fraud in scanners is a matter wholly different from rigging fraud in a (touch-the-TV) voting machine. For instance, a voting machine 'knows' (ID's) who is 'touching' it; a bulk scanning machine has no idea whose ballots it is seeing.

And, relatedly, there are fewer persons with access to centralized scanners, fewer opportunities to implement fraud. Even a brazenly partisan 'director' or 'overseer' is hard put to fool ALL of the staff ALL of the time.

However, a sort of vulnerable step in the process does exist. Ballots are collected at satellite sites, at public buildings such as libraries, City Hall, maybe fire or police stations, in padlocked boxes in open view, and transported (on some schedule) to the central scanning location. In those situations, there are ballots en masse. Though the ballots could not be altered, particularly, I suppose the entire box of them could be stolen. But again, there is no telling whose ballot or what 'majority' is in the box, so theft could not predetermine which way the result would be tipped. (I think I recall 'lost boxes' has happened once or twice in ten years, yet the Secr.of.State must have the records on that.)

The satellite locations to deposit ballots are for folks who shy from putting theirs in the US Mail. Which segues to the second concern.

2.) The worry that your own personal private important carefully-voted ballot is lost in the mail, or waylaid, or something, and you have no receipt for it. Well, if it happens, and probably it does, sometimes, lost-in-the-mail ballots also probably cancel out each other's vote. The incidence rate must be below 1 percent of 1 percent, (1 in 10,000); since it seems to be unheard of. Indeed, in practice just the opposite is said: Letter carriers are hyper-vigilant of the obvious Ballot Envelopes during election season and give them special handling, ultra-conscientious, and stories circulate of extraordinary deliveries beyond-the-call-of-duty. Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor gloom of night nor unAmerican anti-democracy thugs stay the couriers from completion of their responsible duty in The Franchise of Voting.

Much much more error comes from mismarked or unmarked ballots, with coffee cup stains from the kitchen counter top, which have to be decoded by human tabulators, and so forth, as you can imagine. Perhaps the safest place of all in the route of a ballot's life to be counted, is when it's in a US Mailbox.

3.) I forget what you said, Brad, but I'd like to re-emphasize that Vote-by-Mail means every ballot is hardcopy paper-trail, ipso facto. And that's a great good to start with. Then iron out the kinks and wrinkles and precinct cheats as any appear.

Oh, and one more thing. Since ballots are mailed to registered voters 2 weeks before Election Day, then you know if you didn't get yours something is amiss, and you have time in advance to seek recourse and get redress.

You provide lots of fun facts, like "Joe Postalman is ever vigilant knowing he is carrying a load of election-time goodness" and "sure stuff gets lost, but it all averages out" and "problem surely must probably be lower than, say, 1 in 1% of 1% in 1000"

It warms my heart to know these things.

[For the record, look up adjudication, because your state will soon have barcodes tracking your nameless, faceless postal ballot. Touch screens do not know who voted on them except by your fingerprints (just kidding of course).]

Ballots are not paper trails, ipso OR facto. Ballots are put in an envelope and sent through multiple people's hands before then end up on a big palette in the USPS loading dock, where the eventually make their way to an election's loading dock, and eventually handled by either outsourced contractors like Pitney Bowes, or minimum wage temporary poll workers. Who all look at your information and then handle your "private ballot". And maybe even in your state they get tracking numbers.

Please tell me where there was a chain of custody?

Also, just for fun, since you collected petitions to start this mess, you should not be allowed to use the term "precinct" for your State. What meaning is there in a precinct for your state? A column or row in a spreadsheet? A data field on a memory card?

A precinct is a local community location where neighbors go and vote and would notice if the turnout was reported to be half or double, because they were there, watching. A precinct is a place that posts results at the end of the night and neighbors go and check the results (ok, maybe rarely) and they know what their community voted as. They would notice if there was a 20% margin shift.

But put it on a state results website and make it all automated so no one even has to go outdoors or see their neighbors, let alone know if the results are correct.

Kerry's camp NEVER seemed to acknowledge a hint of problem's with voting machines, and Kerry even caved before all the votes were even counted, especially in Ohio. I'm grasping for straws for Nov, even if the straw is tiny. If Obama's camp is aware, they surely know the real battle will be after Nov 4th.

Did anyone read Mark Crispin Miller's book about election fraud? I read that he says Kerry was at a party and told Chris Dodd that he thought the votes were stolen...Dodd got very angry. I did not read the book myself....

How weird! I just found 2 mailers from the Republican Party of Florida (www.rpof.org) in our mailbox this a.m. - 1 addressed to hubby, the other to my son.
They are vote-by-mail request forms for absentee ballots - 2 detachable cards on each mailer, addressed to Elections Supervisor (address is correct, BTW) - w/ boxes to check that you verify name & address on reverse of cards, but only 1 card HAS the name & address on the reverse side(?)There are several boxes to check (1 for a change of address) & a line for signature & explicit directions to follow.

The other part of the tri-fold mailer is an ad (bogus!) against Democrats' wasteful spending.
FWIW, hubby is registered 'NP' - & I think son is as well.
This creeps me out = S

Thanks for your thoughts on Oregon's Vote-by-Mail. Unfortunately, while I appreciate your work on, and concern for democracy, it seems you are unaware of concerns about election integrity and computer security issues.

Don't have time to answer point-by-point for the moment, but I suggest you dig around here a bit. It's clear that you're up-to-speed with the many ways that a single person can game an entire election on the type of voting systems you guys use up there, in such a way, that it'd likely never be noticed.

Furthermore, you seem to misunderstand that it's *transparency* and the citizen oversight that comes with it, not best hopes and wishes, that helps ensure integrity in the system. An enormous chunk of opportunity for transparency is wholly lost in Oregon's VBM system.

In addition to looking around The BRAD BLOG for info that will be helpful on these points in regard to computer security and election transparency, I'd also point you to this article on "Why Vote-by-Mail Is a Terrible Idea".

Hi Kathleen, I'm really confused!I didn' know just anyone/organization could print and distribute official documents such as absentee ballots. Is this okay with Ohio law? I thought only the state printed and distributed their official documents. If just anyone can do their own printing and distributing - mailing addresses??- what a mess. How would anyone know it's legal?? It seems it should be against the law and subject to severe fines, and jail terms??

We live in Wisconsin and are registered democrats. My wife received one of these McCain absentee ballot mailings on Thursday, September 11. At first, I considered sending the two absentee ballot requests in on my son and daughter's behalf, because they're both away at college. On second thought, I decided to shred them because I didn't trust the source of the mailing. If, in fact, these ballot requests were designed to intentionally disqualify legitimate voters, I find this tactic extremely unethical, if not illegal.

"About one-third of the absentee ballot applications received at the Hamilton County Board of Elections have been ruled invalid because Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign printed a version of the form with an extra, unneeded box on it.
"In a narrow interpretation of Ohio law, Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner says many of the McCain forms have not been completed properly. If the box stating the person is an eligible elector --- or qualified voter – is not checked, Brunner said, the application is no good."

Brad did a good job regarding the misdirection ploy, as well; mail the request to the wrong county.

OH might be a good state to remedy the impact of the scam, and to begin a roundup of the counterfeiters and their overseers. I wonder if the OH attorney general would like to weigh in on these two flaws in a timely way. Evidently the absentee ballots are mailed by voting officials beginning three weeks from now.

another foia posted by nancy,again on bbv shows 300 absentee ballots delivered ON ELECTION DAY by thomas manning

think about this folks,the ab ballots were suppose to be RETURNED by election day,its not possible for 335 rep ab ballots to have been legally cast if the state was still delivering ab ballots on election day

bbv is still trying to track down this stuff plus a million other probs but NH will not give names of who got an absentee ballot to anyone but a candidate

the primarys were just practice for rigging the general election

i watched the view interview with mcsame on u tube,in the second part at about 5:09 mcsame says,
the supreme court enforces
geesh,i know i cant type or punctuate but as i remember fifth grade Constitution classes the president enforces

I want to again clarify this because it is annoying seeing this misinformation
repeated. The McCain campaign absentee applications had all the required
information by ORC.

From what I can tell from the signature section, there is no affirmation near the signature about being an eligible voter. This is REQUIRED by
Ohio law and the McCain application did have this affirmation,
but it was at the top of the form as a checkbox with text having a different color background so it was missed by most voters.

It was not "unnecessary box". It also was not the state's absentee application Form 11-A, so they did not copy the text on that form
which would have prevented needing the "check box".

It's some lawyer or graphic designers fault in the McCain campaign,and not Brunner's fault or the voters.

What scares me is that I moved in July to a new state - NM to VA. How do they know this? After I arrived here I quickly registered to vote. I am undeclared, I was undeclared in NM. Frankly, I'm appalled.

While I can understand the Republican candidate sending these ABRs out to the Republican Party's list of Republican voters, As a Republican, how is McCain getting Democratic addresses to send them to?

Furthermore, are the "Pugs using some decade-old Democratic voter's list as their source for mailing these request forms? I'll bet that they get a whole shitload of them back 'cause of all those Democrats who moved either up, down, or collateral to their prevalent economic circumstances just ain't gonna' be there, and the Post Office keeps new adresses for forwarding purposes for only a short time.

So a Rove-Crew mails these trojan envelopes to a statistically obsolete address and get it back, and then cancel (or otherwise "challenge") that person's right to vote ... .

If they're allowed to mail these things out, then the McCainiacs MUST be required to fully disclose their full mailing list, including when, where, and who they got it from.

Furthermore, for all returned absentee ballot requests, if they result from ANY address list that is older than six months, it MUST be determined that those returned requests CANNOT be used for any disenfranchisement purposes.

So a Rove-Crew mails these trojan envelopes to a statistically obsolete address and get it back, and then cancel (or otherwise "challenge") that person's right to vote.

The mailers were NOT sent as "DO NOT FORWARD". My understanding from a postal worker is that if the addressees no longer lived at an address they would be delivered anyway, and then thrown away (presumably) by the actual person who lived there.

If no such address existed, they would be thrown away as undeliverable by the post office.

That is all DIFFERENT than a letter intended to be used for caging purposes.

If they're allowed to mail these things out, then the McCainiacs MUST be required to fully disclose their full mailing list, including when, where, and who they got it from.

I don't believe there are any such legal requirements, as far as I know. And mailing lists can be obtained from multiple sources, including the counties/states in many cases.

Um, okay, so what I fear is not what I fear... But something just don't smell right.

Over the last eight years or so, one thing I've come to expect from the neo-con nation, they always have a plan ... it may even be a stupid plan, but still, whatever they spend money on, it will include a frequently complex, overlapping agenda that virtually always includes some fundamentally illegal ulterior motive.

So we ask ourselves, how could it possibly benefit McCain to suddenly have (tens of?) thousands of people receive these mailers --- especially democrats --- less than two months before the election?

I can't see that any kind of effective mailing program is cheap, and because he opted for public financing, McCain is severely limited in how much money he can spend (whose picking up the tab?). And if it's not an effective mailing program, just why are they doing it?

People are right to be disturbed by its seeming senseless wastefulness.

The mailers were NOT sent as "DO NOT FORWARD". My understanding from a postal worker is that if the addressees no longer lived at an address they would be delivered anyway, and then thrown away (presumably) by the actual person who lived there.

I was a postal worker and there are several variables for delivery. First class mail is ALWAYS subject to forward unless there is a specific DO NOT FORWARD instruction; standard mail is NEVER forwarded unless the mailer has paid for an address correction/"change service" request.

A good rule is never to mess with presort standard mail from someone you don't know (the fact that it has "STD" in it is a handy reminder). If they didn't pay first class, they don't really care what happens to it, and neither should you.

FWIW, my wife and I just got voter registration cards from McC campaign Thursday. We just moved here (San Diego) in May from PA, but motor voter took care of the registration xfer.

I remembered a vote caging effort in 2004 in IN, and recycled the form. Indiana R's were shooting for double registrations and slight errors in otherwise matching addresses to disqualify voters (I was registered D and my wife was stealthily registered as an R. I got the mailer, she didn't.) This time we both got the mailers, and are both registered D.

If McCain is sending out mailers to Democrats with an absentee ballot application, could this not be a trick? Couldn't someone who sent in the absentee application be denied a chance to vote at the polls (turned away because they were told that they have voted already), or the Republicans would finally have documented evidence of people who are trying to vote multiple times that are Democrats so they can have their lies come true about all the voter fraud that is taking place?

Just trying to think like a Republican (boy, that's a dark and scarey place to go).

The problem with the massive absentee ballot requests is that some of the requests are for former addresses, although I can only judge from the one I've seen, but that leads me to believe there are others.

Inactive voter registrations persist for some time after a person moves. Sending out ballot requests for former addresses creates the possibility that a small percentage of voters will give in to temptation and vote twice --- once where they live and once at their old address, where they still show up on the voter roll.

The real question is whether the McCain campaign is deliberately mining inactive lists.

My experience was with an absentee ballot request sent out of state, which required locating the voter's new address, and long after mail forwarding had expired. There are commercial data bases that allow the tracking of individuals, but the question is --- again --- was the McCain campaign deliberately sending an absentee ballot request to someone that could no longer legally vote at that address. I can not answer that question conclusively. In a probabilistic sense however, nearly all out of state absentee requests would be sent to a voter who cannot legally vote at that location.

The question is: how many out of state absentee ballot requests are being sent out? A large-scale mailing of this type would be a deliberate attempt to entice massive voter fraud.

As (somewhat) pointed out earlier, If someone sends a McCain-sponsored absentee ballot application to a voter, as it does get processed some time before election day, it's pretty certain that the polling location servicing that person is notified and he is then appropriately blocked from "also" receiving a home polling-location ballot (perhaps --- if deemed appropriate --- they could be "gifted" a "provisional" ballot).

However, since it is the McCain campaign that is sending these absentee ballots out, do these (allegedly) voter-filled-out absentee ballot applications then go straight to the registrars office, or do they first make a detour back through some Republican administrative apparatus before finally being forwarded on for final Registrar processing?

(Brad?)

If the latter, then all the Repugs have to do is simply delay any "Democrat" applications just long enough so that the receiving Dem simply doesn't have the time to send his absentee ballot in (at least through the mail) to actually make the count for final tabulation.

Of course, here at the Left Coast in California, I can fill out my absentee ballot and then simply drop it off at any polling station on or before election day for it to count. Contawise, just as long as some other more clueless Dem voters get their absentee ballots delivered to them in the mail just before the end of election day, I guess that no "failure to perform" laws would have been broken by any of the McCain camp's more covert operations of Democrat-targeting, voter suppression.

As much as anything else, these uncommonly successful suppression operations are meant to induce apathy among their targets.

According to this blog: people in many states are saying that the McCain absentee ballots ARE rife with incorrect information/return addresses... etc. Some may be ligit while others are not (a mixture of the two would guarantee the GOP a hefty return) and why are they mailing them to Democrats? That alone is fishy enough.

Can we not demand legal intervention on a national scale (paper ballots at the polls and during early voting for all counties/states) in light of the full-scale election tampering going on. This isn't funny. Are we now on par with a third world autocracy? Are we going to let this go until its too late and then what? Does anybody with some power have a backbone? We demsand fair elections!